Abigail Fitz sat back on her heels and tilted her head to the side, trying to relieve the cramp in her neck from bending over a pile of books for so long. She had been kneeling on the hard wood floor of the attic for nearly an hour now, sorting through a bunch of old stuff that her parents kept up there.
"Did you find something, Abby?" Her younger sister, Brooklyn asked, turning away from the trunk she'd been searching through.
"No. I got a cramp from staying still, though." She said with a forced laugh. Brooklyn smiled sympathetically. Beside her, their brother, Elijah looked up, realizing that the girls were talking.
"Did they really have to keep all these books?" He asked, gesturing to the growing pile beside him as he sorted through a box.
"Clearly they had some sort of meaning to them." Brooklyn said. The three of them were in the midst of searching through the family's attic in search of information about their parents' past. Somewhere downstairs, the eldest of the Fitz children, Joshua was making sure their parents didn't come home.
"I guess but seriously, I reckon I've found at least two copies of nearly every book here." Elijah said, exaggerating the amount of books he'd actually found. Brooklyn rolled her eyes and turned back to the trunk, lifting out a big scrapbook.
"Hey, look at this." She pointed to the cover where a picture of their parents took up most of the space underneath the title 'Aria and Ezra - Year 1'.
"Seems like a good place to start." Abigail said, beginning to crawl over. She was about to open the book when they heard the unmistakable sound of the garage door opening and Joshua's footsteps could be heard running up the stairs.
"Guys, get moving! Mom and Dad are back!" He said, appearing in the doorway. The other three hurriedly put away everything they'd pulled out and grabbed the scrapbook, getting out just as they heard their parents come in from the garage.
"Go. I'll be down in a minute." Brooklyn hissed as she started towards her bedroom to hide the scrapbook. Abigail, Joshua and Elijah made their way downstairs to meet their parents in the kitchen and help unpack the groceries.
"Where's your sister?" Their father, Ezra asked noticing Brooklyn's absence.
"Coming. She was just finishing something, I think." Abigail said quickly and turned away as her mother raised an eyebrow questioningly. Aria Fitz knew that her children had not been doing homework while she and Ezra had been out. She knew they'd been watching TV or playing a game together. Luckily, Abigail was saved from further questioning by Brooklyn bursting in the door.
"Sorry, I just had to save my work. Oooh…chocolate, can we bake choc-chip cookies? Please, please, please?" She began to jump up and down excitedly as she waved the bag of chocolate drops in the air. Aria grinned and took the chocolate away from her daughter.
"Maybe. If you stop jumping like a grasshopper." She said with a laugh.
"Sorry. I just haven't had Dad's homemade choc-chip cookies in ages." Brooklyn threw her arm in the air dramatically, narrowly missing Joshua's head as he stood up from getting something from a grocery bag.
"Hey! Watch where you throw your arm, B." He said, ducking out of the way.
"Whoops." Abigail rolled her eyes at her sister's antics but she knew it was all a diversion to keep her parents from asking more about what they'd done while they were out.
"Oh, by the way, we're going out tonight. Hanna and Caleb are throwing a dinner party to celebrate Poppy's birthday." Ezra told his children who looked up excitedly. They loved going over to their Aunt Hanna and Uncle Caleb's place. It was a huge house, almost a mansion, that sat nestled in a clearing of the woods behind the main town of Rosewood. There was almost always somewhere new to explore and Hanna and Caleb's kids loved to show off their home to the other Rosewood children.
"Casual or fancy?" Abigail asked.
"In between. Why don't you wear that new dress of yours. It's fairly warm outside today and the weather is supposed to stay at an even temperature for a few days." Aria suggested, glad that her daughters had inherited a good sense of fashion. Her sons, on the other hand, were almost a hopeless case and she was always arguing with them to choose a better outfit. She blamed Ezra for their lack of fashion sense and the two had had several playful arguments on the matter over the years.
"Okay. Hey, B, let's go sort out dresses and stuff for you." Abigail turned to her sister with a meaningful look, careful not to let her parents see it.
"Umm…sure." It took Brooklyn a few seconds to understand what the look meant but a smile came onto her face when she did. The two girls rushed up the stairs and disappeared into Brooklyn's room, shutting and locking the door behind them. They could still hear their parents talking to the boys downstairs but knew that the boys would join them soon. Brooklyn rummaged under her bed for a moment before pulling the scrapbook out. Together, the girls sat on the floor and opened to the first page where another picture of their parents resided. This time it was one taken in the streets of Rosewood. Ezra had his arms over Aria's shoulders from behind her where she clung to them. Both of them were smiling at the camera. They seemed just as happy then as they did now. The next several pages contained similar images of the two of them, sometimes joined by other friends or family. Just as they finally found a page with a newspaper clipping, there was a knock on the door. Brooklyn slammed the book shut and Abigail went over to the door.
"Who is it?" She called through the wood.
"Josh and Eli." She recognised Joshua's voice and unlocked the door, letting the boys in.
"What are Mom and Dad doing?" She asked as she made sure the door was locked again.
"Mom's making some sort of salad to take along tonight and Dad's grading papers in the study." Elijah said and Abigail nodded. The four of them sat down and Brooklyn opened the book back to the newspaper clipping and they all gasped as they read the heading 'Rosewood Teens Accused of Murder'. Below it was a picture of Aria and her high school friends standing together as the police questioned them. The four girls were covered in what looked like mud and were clearly distraught over something from the way they clung to each other. In the background, there was an ambulance parked near the church and you could just make out a gurney in the doorway of the building.
"Mom was involved in a murder investigation?" Elijah asked, the shock evident in his voice.
"Apparently. I wonder who died." Abigail mussed, scanning the rest of the article.
"Some girl named Alison. She was part of mom's group of friends in their freshman year of high school but disappeared at the end of the summer." Brooklyn said, reading a piece of paper that had apparently fallen out of the book. "Mom and her friends were on the top of the suspect list for ages but the girls kept coming up with other suspects so the police dropped the case after a few years and still no-one knows what happened to Alison."
"Wow. Sounds like some sort of reality TV show. Who would have thought that murder would happen in a sleepy town like Rosewood." Joshua said and the others nodded their agreement.
"It says here that the person who died was some guy named Ian. The girls claimed he was trying to frame them or something." Abigail said, pointing to a paragraph in the newspaper article. Elijah grabbed the book from the floor and began to flick through the pages but there were no more articles about the investigation.
"I wonder if there's any information on it at the library. They keep old newspapers, don't they?" He asked.
"Maybe. How about we head down there and check it out?" Joshua suggested.
"You guys go. Brooke and I have to actually sort out a dress for her or Mom and Dad will get suspicious." Abigail said and waved her hand at Brooklyn when she tried to argue.
"Good idea. If we find anything, we'll let you know and you guys can check it out another time." Joshua said as he and Elijah got up. They let themselves out of the room and it wasn't long before the girls heard Joshua's car start up and drive off. Turning her attention to Brooklyn's wardrobe, she ignored her sister's complaints and began to pull items of clothing out and threw them onto the bed.